


Can’t believe I made it here

by doctorcakeray



Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men (Movies), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Ableism, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-25
Updated: 2012-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-22 08:45:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorcakeray/pseuds/doctorcakeray
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles Xavier through the years.  Begins post X-Men: First Class.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can’t believe I made it here

It takes a long time to get used to his new body, because that’s what it is.  He adjusts.  Months of physical therapy, various medications, refitting the mansion.  A lot of old tasks become ordeals, and he has a lot of new things to do.  Blisters from the wheelchair rims turn into calluses, and for once he can say his fingerless gloves are practical.  He learns to get around the grounds pretty well, he thinks.

He has a school to run, after all, and Charles will be damned if he can’t keep up with a twelve year old.

Well, flying twelve year olds might be getting ahead of himself, but Charles Xavier is good at getting ahead of himself.

Erik first visits the mansion half a year after.  It’s winter, and Charles is wearing a thick sweater and a scarf, and there’s a grey blanket draped over his lap.  He would say that Erik’s outfit is ridiculous, but his attention has narrowed to the fact Erik seems unable to stop staring at the blanket.  Charles is furious over that detail, and he’ll be damned if he has to be the one to speak first.

Except he’s terrible at keeping his mouth shut, so he finally says, “Did you come to see Darwin?”  Darwin rematerialized a week ago, stunning everyone, and it was one of those things that made Charles stop and think, _we could do anything._   And then Erik showed up, reminding him of exactly where he’d failed.  Still, Charles thought wryly, if he was looking to recruit, he’d be disappointed.  Alex had been the one to catch Darwin up, and he still wanted to shoot Erik with a plasma beam.

Erik takes a long time to finally speak.  “I’d like to see him, but I came here to speak with you.”

Charles doesn’t know what to say to that, so he waits.  He would like to say, _look at my face, damn it,_ but he doesn’t.

It’s like Erik heard that thought, though, when he slowly raises his gaze to meet Charles’s eyes.  He recognizes the expression from the beach at Cuba, when something broke, shame and anger and hurt, and he thinks, _if you’ve been doing that to yourself for six months, you’re an idiot.  We’re both idiots._

“I’m sorry, for what I did to you,” Erik says.

_You don’t know the half of it,_ Charles thinks, but doesn’t say, partly because he wouldn’t put it past Erik to have been keeping tabs on him, to know things like the fact that Charles went through three months of different kinds and doses of muscle relaxants every week.  He found out about Darwin somehow, after all.  Mostly, Charles doesn’t speak his thoughts because the truth is cruel.

He rolls his wheelchair back and makes room for Erik on the path.  “Would you like to come inside?”

Erik nearly chokes on his answer, so he just nods, bleak winter sunlight reflecting off his helmet.

They’re halfway through a chess match when Charles finally works up the courage to ask, “Would Raven come to visit?”

Erik looks up.  “She goes by Mystique now.”

“Okay…” Charles says slowly, waiting for an answer.  When it doesn’t come, he asks, “Does she still consider herself my sister?”

“Of course.” Erik’s eyes go wide.  “You thought she wouldn’t?”

Charles wriggles his fingers near his temple, a gesture he’s long since abandoned since his hands are usually otherwise occupied.  He grimaces.  “I don’t know what to think, when I can’t tell.”

Neither one of them say that’s his greatest flaw, but it hangs there.

Raven comes to visit a few days later.  She’s blue, but wearing clothes, and a couple of the kids stop to stare at her.  Charles meets her at the door, and the first thing out of his mouth is, “You look lovely.”

He realizes that he means it, and with a stab he realizes that it shouldn’t have taken losing her, taken not getting to see her every day, for him to know that.

There are several things warring in her expression.  Surprise at the greeting, probably, which makes Charles want to punch himself in the face, and surprise at the wheelchair, which makes Charles just want to punch something.  She finally gives him a small smile, and leans in to hug him.  He’s glad to return it.

He introduces her to the students, a little over a dozen now.  A decade down the road, right after she attempts to poison Charles, several years will pass where none of the students know her.  Another fifteen years and she’ll be a teacher there.

Tonight, they’re brother and sister.  After the children are all asleep, they go for a late walk on the grounds.  It takes no small amount of convincing to get Raven to sit across his lap, but it’s worth it, moments later, when he navigates them downhill.  She shrieks with laughter and wraps her arms tightly around his neck as they speed along, hardly breathing until he eases them to a halt.  When they get back to the mansion he grabs a plateful of cookies as she pours two glasses of milk.  They curl up and go through old, faded picture books from their childhood.  Crumbs fall into the blankets in a way Charles would chastise the students for, but he can’t be bothered to care as Raven nods off against his shoulder.  Charles is sad to see her go in the morning, but he has no right to make her stay.

Raven is about to dial the phone for Azazel when Charles speaks up.  He’s terrible at apologies, but he at least has to try.

“I’m so sorry,” he says.  “I should have understood.  I didn’t know what it was like to be looked at differently.”

He’s gone and said the wrong thing again, he knows, when she starts crying.

It’s strange, how things work out.  Irene starts off at the academy, then goes on to lead the Brotherhood with Raven for a time.  Marie publicly defeats Ms. Marvel as a member of the Brotherhood, then becomes one of the most crucial X-Men.

And occasionally, for a few bright moments, they all manage to work together.

Years down the road, a sixteen year old girl will roll her eyes at him, sigh, and put it most honestly.  “It’s a break up that never actually ends.”

Charles actually manages to find it funny, though it’s probably the modern phrasing that helps, but mostly he takes it because it’s insightful, but Jean Grey always was insightful.  It’s so strange, Charles thinks, that the person who knows him best is nearly his daughter.

It’s strange and wonderful, Charles thinks ten years later, when he dances at her wedding, floating over the ground.  Not everyone, but so many people he loves are there.  _We could do anything,_ is at the back of his mind, warm and safe.

It’s a long time later, after he and Erik have died and come back to life and de-aged so many times he has no idea how old they really are, that Erik joins the X-Men to stay.  Charles isn’t there, he’s made his own mistakes and he’s working to put them to rights.  When they meet each other again, Erik has found his own redheaded teenager to lecture him on morality, and Charles keeps the irony of it to himself.

What he does voice to Erik, strolling through a palace floating in the sky, is just this:  “Look at our children.”

“I know.” His words sound as reverent as Charles’s.  Erik turns to smile at him.  “They can do anything.”


End file.
